I was using my spokeshave today and couldn’t get the dang thing to stop chattering. I waxed the sole and the blade was sharp (I couldn’t get it quite as sharp as my plane blades, but it was still very sharp). The spokeshave is a cast iron flat bottom stanley 151 with the original blade.

Any ideas on how to stop the spokeshave chatter? Or is it just the nature of the beast?

Thanks

-- The Wood Is Your Oyster

7 replies so far

It’s the nature of the tool in my experience. We try to substitute spokeshaves for compass planes and drawknives.

They’re called a spokeshave because they’re a tool forshaping riven wheel spokes. Considering the straightgrain of riven spoke blanks and also that a wheel spokedoesn’t usually need a tear-out free surface and thespokeshave makes sense.

Downhill convex rounded shapes I might use a blockor larger plane on, making short tangential cuts, thenfairing the curve with rasps and/or files. Concavecurves are trickier.

I used to have a compass plane but seldom used itand I wasn’t that impressed with the cut quality.

Maybe try taking a thinner shaving and/or skewing the spokeshave (one hand closer to you than the other). Are you going against the grain by chance? If so try turning the wood around or pushing instead of pulling.

Loren- I was sort of worried it was the nature of the beast, and it sounds like that is at least somewhat true. Thought about a compass plane, but I am a little wary of them. Seems like the sort of tool that work in a laboratory and that is about it. Been wanting some Rasps lately. I am trying to get a good system down for fairing curves, and I think the rasp might be the answer. Freehanding a fair curve is pretty difficult with a spokeshave and sandpaper.

Tim- I am going with the grain and skewing. That helps, but doesn’t totally solve it.

I’ve had very good experience with high quality spokeshaves (in my case Veritas ones). I have very little chatter and use them all the time. I have used cheap ones and found them nothing but frustrating, although your historical one is probably much better quality.One problem on cheaper ones is that the casting behind the iron is poor, leaving part of the iron unsupported. There was an article in a magazine not that long ago about how to tune up a cheap one using epoxy (JB Weld type, not the kind we use for glue) to sort of cast a new place for the iron to rest. Seems like a lot of work to me, but apparently the author got a $15 ss to work like a $100 one. https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/tipstechniques/tuning-and-using-spokeshaveBrian Boggs also had an article in FWW that was interesting on this subject.

Check out the Iwasaki files. They are an awesome valuecompared to hand-cut rasps. Machine cut rasps arekind of blah for furniture grade work.

oh… and the old-fashioned spoke shaves with the tangedforged blades work better in my opinion. I only haveone, a funny forged aluminum thing, but it has thatstyle of low angle iron and it’s nice to use. I think Lee Valley sells some new ones in that style.

Also, the 151 is prone to breakage. I dropped oneit one side split off where the casting is tapped forthe height screw. The ones lacking the heightscrews are stronger. I have a couple of those withcurved bottoms. Still hard to fare a curve with them taking anything more than a narrow cut.

Jeremy – I was thinking a more expensive one might work a little better. Probably not in the funds right now, but I might save up for one and splurge when I have a project where I will be using a spokeshave a lot.

Loren – I’ll definitely check out those Iwasaki files. I might actually start another forum on some cheap rasp options, but I’ll start with Iwasaki. I’ll check out the tanged blade spokeshaves as well.

WoodenOyster, didn’t mean to insult if you were already doing those, but those are the really basic things to try and sometimes people miss the basic stuff. Found this from Patrick Leach:

One thing that you’ll likely suffer the first time youever use one, especially the metallic models, is chatter. This is almostalways due to too much pressure being placed on the heel of the toolcausing it to rock back on itself. You also need to put sufficientpressure on the toe, ahead of the iron. Forceful strokes will make itspew tight curls effortlessly.